Kal growled in anger and pain, snatching his quarterstaff from the ground and leaping at Jost. The older boy cursed, stumbling backward as he raised his weapon. Kal bellowed, slamming his weapon forward.
Something changed in that moment. Kal felt an energy as he held the weapon, an excitement that washed away his pain. He spun, smashing the staff into one of Jost’s hands.
Jost let go with that hand, screaming. Kal brought his weapon around and slammed it into the boy’s side. Kal had never held a weapon before, never been in a fight any more dangerous than a wrestling match with Tien. But the length of wood felt right in his fingers. He was amazed by how wonderful the moment felt.
Jost grunted, stumbling again, and Kal brought his weapon back around, preparing to smash Jost’s face. He raised his staff, but then froze. Jost was bleeding from the hand Kal had hit. Just a little, but it was blood.
He’d hurt someone.
Jost growled and lurched upright. Before Kal could protest, the larger boy swept Kal’s legs from underneath him, sending him to the ground, knocking the breath from his lungs. That set afire the wound in his side, and the painspren scampered across the ground, latching on to Kal’s side, looking like an orange scar as they fed on Kal’s agony.
Jost stepped back. Kal lay on his back, breathing. He didn’t know what to feel. Holding the staff in that moment had felt wonderful. Incredible. At the same time, he could see Laral to the side. She stood up and, instead of kneeling to help him, turned and walked away, toward her father’s mansion.
Tears welled in Kal’s eyes. With a shout, he rolled over and grabbed the quarterstaff again. He would not give in!
“None of that now,” Jost said from behind. Kal felt something hard on his back, a boot shoving him down to the stone. Jest took the staff from Kal’s fingers.
I failed. I…lost. He hated the feeling, hated it far more than the pain.
“You did well,” Jost said grudgingly. “But leave off. I don’t want to have to hurt you for real.”
Kal bowed his head down, letting his forehead rest on the warm, sunlit rock. Jost removed his foot, and the boys withdrew, chatting, their boots scraping on rock. Kal forced himself to his hands and knees, then up onto his feet.
Jost turned back, wary, holding his quarterstaff in one hand.
“Teach me,” Kal said.
Jost blinked in surprise. He glanced at his brother.
“Teach me,” Kal pled, stepping forward. “I’ll worm for you, Jost. My father gives me two hours off each afternoon. I’ll do your work then if you’ll teach me, in the evenings, what your father is teaching you with that staff.”
He had to know. Had to feel the weapon in his hands again. Had to see if that moment he’d felt had been a fluke. Jost considered, then finally shook his head. “Can’t. Your fah would kill me. Get those surgeon’s hands of yours all covered with calluses? Wouldn’t be right.” He turned away. “You go be what you are, Kal. I’ll be what I am.”
Kal stood for a long while, watching them go. He sat down on the rock. Laral’s figure was growing distant. There were some servants coming down the hillside to fetch her. Should he chase after her? His side still hurt, and he was annoyed at her for leading him down to the others in the first place. And, above all, he was still embarrassed.
He lay back down, emotions welling inside of him. He had trouble sorting through them.
“Kaladin?”
He turned, ashamed to find tears in his eyes, and saw Tien sitting on the ground behind him. “How long have you been there?” Kal snapped.
Tien smiled, then set a rock on the ground. He climbed to his feet and hurried away, not stopping when Kal called after him. Grumbling, Kal forced himself to his feet and walked over to pick up the rock.
It was another dull, ordinary stone. Tien had a habit of finding those and thinking they were incredibly precious. He had an entire collection of them back in the house. He knew where he’d found each one, and could tell you what was special about it.
With a sigh, Kal began walking back toward the town.
You go be what you are. I’ll be what I am.
His side smarted. Why hadn’t he hit Jost when he’d had the chance? Could he train himself out of freezing in battle like that? He could learn to hurt. Couldn’t he?
Did he want to?
You go be what you are.
What did a man do if he didn’t know what he was? Or even what he wanted to be?
Eventually, he reached Hearthstone proper. The hundred or so buildings were set in rows, each one shaped like a wedge with the low side pointing stormward. The roofs were of thick wood, tarred to seal out the rain. The northern and southern sides of the buildings rarely had windows, but the fronts—facing west away from the storms—were nearly all window. Like the plants of the stormlands, the lives of men here were dominated by the highstorms.
Kal’s home was near the outskirts. It was larger than most, built wide to accommodate the surgery room, which had its own entrance. The door was ajar, so Kal peeked in. He’d expected to see his mother cleaning, but instead found that his father had returned from Brightlord Wistiow’s manor. Lirin sat on the edge of the operating table, hands in his lap, bald head bowed. He held his spectacles in his hand, and he looked exhausted.
“Father?” Kal asked. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
Lirin looked up. His face was somber, distant.
“Father?” Kal asked, growing more concerned.
“Brightlord Wistiow has been carried by the winds.”
“He’s dead?” Kal was so shocked he forgot his side. Wistiow had always been there. He couldn’t be gone. What of Laral? “He was healthy just last week!”
“He has always been frail, Kal,” Lirin said. “The Almighty calls all men back to the Spiritual Realm eventually.”
“You didn’t do anything?” Kal blurted out; he regretted the words immediately.
“I did all I could,” his father said, rising. “Perhaps a man with more training than I…Well, there is no use in regrets.” He walked to the side of the room, removing the black covering from the goblet lamp filled with diamond spheres. It lit the room immediately, blazing like a tiny sun.
“We have no citylord then,” Kal said, raising a hand to his head. “He had no son….”
“Those in Kholinar will appoint us a new citylord,” Lirin said. “Almighty send them wisdom in the choice.” He looked at the goblet lamp. Those were the citylord’s spheres. A small fortune.
Kal’s father put the covering right back on the goblet, as if he hadn’t just removed it. The motion plunged the room back into darkness, and Kal blinked as his eyes adjusted.
“He left these to us,” Kal’s father said.
Kal started. “What?”
“You’re to be sent to Kharbranth when you turn sixteen. These spheres will pay your way—Brightlord Wistiow requested it be done, a last act to care for his people. You will go and become a true master surgeon, then return to Hearthstone.”
In that moment, Kal knew his fate had been sealed. If Brightlord Wistiow had demanded it, Kal would go to Kharbranth. He turned and walked from the surgery room, passing out into the sunlight, not saying another word to his father.
He sat down on the steps. What did he want? He didn’t know. That was the problem. Glory, honor, the things Laral had said…none of those really mattered to him. But there had been something there when he’d held the quarterstaff. And now, suddenly, the decision had been taken from him.
The rocks Tien had given him were still in his pocket. He pulled them out, then took his canteen off his belt and washed them with water. The first one he’d been given showed the white swirls and strata. It appeared the other one had a hidden design too.
It looked like a face, smiling at him, made of white bits in the rock. Kal smiled despite himself, though it quickly faded. A rock wasn’t going to solve his problems.
Unfortunately, though he sat for a long while thinking, it didn’t look like anything would solve his problems. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be a surgeon, and he felt suddenly constricted by what life was forcing him to become.
But that one moment holding the quarterstaff sang to him. A single moment of clarity in an otherwise confusing world.
Might I be quite frank? Before, you asked why I was so concerned. It is for the following reason:
“He’s old,” Syl said with awe, flitting around the apothecary. “Really old. I didn’t know men got this old. You sure he’s not decayspren wearing a man’s skin?”
Kaladin smiled as the apothecary shuffled forward with his cane, oblivious of the invisible windspren. His face was as full of chasms as the Shattered Plains themselves, weaving out in a pattern from his deeply recessed eyes. He wore a pair of thick spectacles on the tip of his nose, and was dressed in dark robes.
Kaladin’s father had told him of apothecaries—men who walked the line between herbalists and surgeons. Common people regarded the healing arts with enough superstition that it was easy for an apothecary to cultivate an arcane air. The wooden walls were draped with cloth glyphwards styled in cryptic patterns, and behind the counter were shelves with rows of jars. A full human skeleton hung in the far corner, held together by wires. The windowless room was lit with bundles of garnet spheres hanging from the corners.
Despite all that, the place was clean and tidy. It had the familiar scent of antiseptic Kaladin associated with his father’s surgery.
“Ah, young bridgeman.” The short apothecary adjusted his spectacles. He stooped forward, running his fingers through his wispy white beard. “Come for a ward against danger, perhaps? Or maybe a young washwoman in the camp has caught your eye? I have a potion which, if slipped into her drink, will make her regard you with favor.”
Kaladin raised an eyebrow.
Syl, however, opened her mouth in an amazed expression. “You should give that to Gaz, Kaladin. It would be nice if he liked you more.”
I doubt that’s what it’s intended for, Kaladin thought with a smile.
“Young bridgeman?” the apothecary asked. “Is it a charm against evil you desire?”
Kaladin’s father had spoken of these things. Many apothecaries purveyed supposed love charms or potions to cure all manner of ailments. They’d contain nothing more than some sugar and a few pinches of common herbs to give a spike of alertness or drowsiness, depending on the purported effect. It was all nonsense, though Kaladin’s mother had put great stock in glyphwards. Kaladin’s father had always expressed disappointment in her stubborn way of clinging to “superstitions.”
“I need some bandages,” Kaladin said. “And a flask of lister’s oil or knobweed sap. Also, a needle and gut, if you have any.”
The apothecary’s eyes opened wide in surprise.
“I’m the son of a surgeon,” Kaladin admitted. “Trained by his hand. He was trained by a man who had studied in the Great Concourse of Kharbranth.”
“Ah,” the apothecary said. “Well.” He stood up straighter, setting aside his cane and brushing his robes. “Bandages, you said? And some antiseptic? Let me see….” He moved back behind the counter.